


Well Now It's On Fire

by Esyla



Series: You Don't Have To Be Insane in the Inquisition, But It Helps [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Chaos, Cullen has feelings, Cullen's sister, F/M, Illya has parkour, M/M, The Winter Palace, dialogue strips, filler chapter, free form writing, i dont even know, little to no plot, sorry if this is confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 19:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3220481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esyla/pseuds/Esyla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The antics that ensue in the days before and the day of the ball at the Winter Palace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well Now It's On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry I am getting around to more of the feeling stuff. But honestly this fandom needs a million more insane fics than it has. (Not Beta'd)

There are screams from the training yard.

“When I said covered in Bees I did not actually mean real bees!”

“Why are they on fire!”

“Maker protect us!”

“Things were bad before but now they are still bad and on FIRE!”

More screams.

Disgusted noises.

Laughing.

And that was the last time that Sera, Dorian and Illya were ever allowed to train together without supervision from at least one advisor or Cassandra.

The afternoon was going really well. The war table meeting was over and Illya had just climbed into Cullen’s lap and started trying to undress him without removing her mouth from his face when there was a knock. They both groaned. There was no good system to keep the runners and scouts away because they never had time to plan for this kind of thing and Illya tended to forget to lock doors once the mood struck her.

“Commander, your sister is here to see.” Came a voice from the other side of the door. Cullen knew this could only end in fire and death because Illya’s face lit up with glee.

“What?” His mouth still provided because how in the Maker did his sister manage to track him down.

“Yes!” Illya gasps, literally leaping off his lap and bolting for the door at her top running speed. She of course doesn’t even try to take the stairs but vaults off the battlements onto a merchant’s tent with a bounce.

“Your worship please!” Come shouts.

“Illya no!” Cullen calls after her.

“Illya yes!” She caws back at him. He needs to make a mental note that letting her and Dorian antagonize the crows is a horrible idea and must be stopped at all costs. Cullen makes it down the steps to find his sister and her children (Because they look exactly like her) and a man that must be the husband he had heard about looking terrified of Illya’s behavior.

“What’s your name?” Illya asks his nephew. The boy looks remarkably like Cullen did as a child.

“Havelock.” The small boy says dutifully.

“Seriously?” Illya asks looking shocked.

“It was my father’s name.” Cullen tells her before she can say the rude remark he can clearly see on her face. His sister looks like she is going to do something about the weird elf who jumped from great heights in front of them.

“Adora, may I present Inquisitor Illya Rae Lavellan.” Cullen tells his sister before things go really bad.

“Do you want to see a dragon skull?” Illya asks the children.

“Yes!” The three chorus.

“Bull!” Illya shouts and somehow the Qunari appears out of thin air. “Grab the tiny humans. We are going to go look at dragon bones.”

“Awesome!” Bull lifts the children in his arms, throwing Havelock over his horns and runs after Illya who has climbed up the wall to the gardens rather than use the doors. Cullen turns to look at his seething sister.

“If we let her be weird on off days she doesn’t try to eat the Orleasian nobility.” He offers.

His sister stays for the next couple of months. She eventually gets over the particularities of the Inquisition. And Cullen enjoys having her around. Except that she sees right through him.

“So you are madly in love with the woman.” Adora states two nights after arriving. The husband, Rickard, has the children out in the garden.

“Way to ease into that.” Cullen can tell his face is bright red.

“Do you know what you are doing?” Adora asks looking at him with a soft face. She looks like mother now. Cullen is taken back to the last time he saw his parents when they willingly shipped him off to be a templar. They hadn’t know back then. No one had. It was only in recent years that the life of a templar stopped being something every parent wanted for their child. His parents had been lesser nobility, little more than merchants in a small village with more children than they needed. His brother ruled the estate now. His sisters had married into distinguished families, for love. But looking into Adora’s eyes was a trip down his past.

“I am trying to save the world.”

“Cullen.” Adora took his hand.

“Yeah…” He admits feeling guilty for even trying to keep this from his big sister. “I do.”

“What happens after?” Adora asks in a small voice. “She’s Dalish. They don’t… they tend to not…”

“I dont know.” The words are like a knife to the chest. “It’s too new to ask.”

“If she breaks your heart I am going to break her face.” Adora speaks in a steely tone. “I don’t care how good she is with knives. I fight dirty and I never give up.”

It makes him laugh. He needs to laugh more. He needed his family. How could he have forgotten that. Especially now chased by ghosts of demons and memories.

Getting Illya into a dress is a little bit like getting pants on a cat. (Something that had actually been tried recently to very poor results.) Illya won’t wear the formal attire either because it doesn’t give her enough range of movement. They end up having to have a special outfit made just for her. It’s somewhere between a dress and pants. Thin skin tight pants under a long tunic that has slits up the sides to reveal her legs and a good portion of her butt. It’s almost scandalous in it’s lack of coverage. Illya loves it. Cullen has to be excused from the room or make a complete fool of himself.

Illya might be secretly loathing every moment of this ball so far but only she knows that because her face is serene and her outfit and hair are impeccable. Her hair has been curled, something she didn’t even know it could do but according to Dorian and Vivienne does splendidly, and braided away from her face.  They had taken away her Dalish warpaint and instead made her wear make up. But honestly Illya isn’t that upset about any of that. One look in the mirror had shown her that she looked like pure sex.

The problem was the people. Also her crew. Who knew the lot of them were such whiny babies. Iron Bull had ripped a seam in the sash before they even arrived. Sera had spit at Solas while they were in the ‘changing hall’ outside the palace. But now they were in the Winter Palace and only had the length of the ball to figure out who to support and who was the assassin.

Personally Illya liked Celine and wanted her to keep in power. Gaspard was a bit too war hungry for her. Also everyone was staring at her.

“Racists.” Illya said to herself.

“Or it might be that you look stunning.” Cullen offers. He looks really good in the dress clothes. He is also one of the people smuggling in weapons for the Inquisition. Everyone but Illya has pieces or parts of armor and weapons in their bags. But more importantly Cullen isnt wearing armor, which means his ass is just THERE.

“Creators.” Illya breathes as Cullen walks away and Dorian appears to escort her into the ballroom.

“It’s unfair that you called dibs.” Dorian drools a little his eyes also fixed on Cullen’s rear end.

“Dude, what do you call the giant hunk of man meat you seem to be all over?” Illya knows things, just because she is busy doesn’t mean she isn't sneaky as hell.

“You cheeky dick waffle!” Dorian blushes. Illya laughs. Well tonight might not be a completely disaster.

**  
  
**

“That was a priceless piece of art!”

“Well now it’s on fire.”

“Why is Varric in the pantry?”

“Score! I am not the most hated member of the group!”

“Ugh.”

“Children, can we please play nice and find a damn way out of the labyrinth that is the servant quarters?”

“I have no idea where we are.”

“Same.”

“Should we put that fire out?”

**  
  
  
  
**

Cullen is standing in a corner with Cole because the kid has been making people forget he is there for the past ten minutes, if only to get rid of the horde of women that have been following him everywhere. According to Cole he was helping because “the kittens need a father”. Cullen didn’t feel like asking.

 

“Everyone back in dress clothes?”

“Yes!”

“Does this look right?”

“I don’t have shoes, is that going to be a problem?”

“Ugh.”

**  
  
**

Leliana is having a wonderful time. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed fashion and fashion missteps. It was also rather amazing to watch Vivienne work a room. While Cullen might be deeply uncomfortable with the constant request for a dance Leliana was making note of every man and woman who made a request. She had been right to keep his involvement with the Inquisitor quiet until after the ball. Marriage contracts could take years to formalize and in the mean time the noble families owed their allegiance to the Inquisition. They would just have to make sure that Illya never found out.

“The bad guy is the cousin!”

“Ew! I danced with her. I need to be cleansed!”

“I have brandy!”

“Can we just set these clothes on fire to rid me of her filfth?”

“I am releasing the demons now…”

“No I think you might need clothes Illya.”

“Okay fine. We can burn the dress after the party.”

“Releasing the demons…”

“I don’t know, the commander seemed pretty taken with the outfit.”

“Okay Dorian has a point. I burn the clothes after Cullen rips them off me.”

“Are any of you listening to me?”

“YES MYTHAL! You are releasing the demons, get on with it already! Dorian and I have booty calls to get to!”

“UGH!”

“And Cassandra has a date with a dirty book.”

“Okay, but you know the demons are going to eat you right?”

“Listen. First you steal Krem’s hair cut….”

“She really did.”

“... Now you think demons scare me. We fight demons every day.”

“Twice on Thursdays.”

Illya has finally reappeared after dragging Dorian, Varric, Iron Bull, Cassandra and Sera to search the quarters. They all smell like the brandy Varric had been hiding earlier. Only one of them has every part of the formal dress outfit on and two still have demon guts on their hands.

“Cousin bitch is the killer.” Illya says running up to him.

“What do you want to do?”

“We took a vote and there are three votes for throw things at her, one vote for setting her on fire, one vote for shaving her head and Cassandra voted to never come on another adventure with us.”

“That’s not…”

“Okay but seriously if I call the bitch out are we going to be in massive trouble with most of the nobility or do they like theater?”

“Um I don’t know but the Empress is about to speak.”

“Balls!”

**  
To say that the Inquisitor jumped from balcony to the railings and then used the drapes to spin kick the would be assassin in the face would be accurate. To also say that that most of the nobility told the tale wrong and added at least one chandelier to the tale would also be right.**

**Author's Note:**

> Dancing thing in next chapter.


End file.
